By the late 1940s, American neuropsycholgist Karl Lashley is trying to discover where the brain stores memories. To isolate where memory is stored, he destroys one region of the lab rat brain after another—still the rats retain specific memories. While these experiments fail to provide him with the answer he seeks, it does confirm his fundamental belief that the brain's function is equally potent in all regions of the cortex.

Young neurosurgeon Karl Pribram abandons his lucrative career and joins Lashley in his work. In later years, Pribram discovers the functions that the different parts of the brain control; however, he concludes that memories seem to be distributed throughout the brain. Through the work of other noted scientists in the fields of optical holography and physiology, Pribram is able to conclude that perception occurs as a result of complex reading and...